FunOps – Preparing our Hackathon

Welcome to the second part of a three-part journey through our world of FunOps! In this part, we will dive deep into how to prepare for a hackathon, exploring the preparations that paved the way for our first FinOps hackathon—a day focused on tackling significant challenges ahead. Remember from our first blog that we would try to tackle three things: increased tagging, Executing savings, and finding new savings that were not yet on our radar.

Missed the first part of the series? Read it here.

We tried to come up with an ambitious yet achievable goal. Then, try to get 60% of the upfront agreed savings during the hackathon. Finally, aim for an after-tagging to have 50% of resources tagged with our agreed tagging strategy. Of course, these numbers would also result in a couple of secondary goals that were maybe, in the longer run, more important than the number now. We would learn as a FinOps team what works and what does not. But also be able to test the waters. We would be able to create posterchilds of success and echo that to the organisation. Showcasing the correct behaviour. When rightsized, you could start thinking about what we can reserve or improve further.

Excel is dead, long live Excel

The preparation phase was marked by strategic planning through a playbook. In this playbook we have written the rules of the game. Who will be communicating what at what moment. What is the game plant from a enablement point of view. However we also needed to find a way to centralise savings, tagging to be executed. In the FinOps community there is often laughter when Excel comes on the table as a tool to do FinOps. Arguably it might not be the perfect tool, it is widely adopted. Everyone understands how to work with Excel so we started our savings logbook in Excel and this way we we could assign teams through different tabs. We did not need to work on explaining some other tool we choose to use. Excel is dead, long live Excel!

While not everything went as planned—such as rallying everyone around executable savings—our continuous stakeholder engagement through steering committees and regular updates kept the momentum alive and pushed it over the finish line of step 1: the Preparation.

Logistically, accommodating teams across different time zones presented another challenge. We opted for a hybrid format, with participants joining both on-site and remotely, ensuring inclusion and maximising engagement during work hours for everyone involved. My weapon of choice was Microsoft Teams. We created a channel for each team where we put all the files they could need during and before the hackathon. This worked perfectly in the execution

About preparation and enablement

Communication was our lifeline as we needed to expose and prepare different people to FinOps and the idea of a Hackathon. With four scheduled presentations leading up to the hackathon, we covered everything from the basics of FinOps to the detailed strategies of the hackathon itself. Each session was designed to ensure everyone understood their roles and the broader objectives of the day.

What we’ve learned

In reflection, although we could have pushed for more aggressive savings agreements upfront or enhanced internal communication within our FinOps team, the preparation stage was a formidable success. Stay tuned for the next part, in which I’ll share the day of the hackathon and the outcomes that impacted our approach to cloud financial management.

How to prepare for a hackathon: Conclusion

As a conclusion of this blog, I think it is super important to continuously build up communication and tools to support the message. Culture does not change in one go; however, if every action is well-defined and well-prepared, you can assume the right atmosphere is created to adopt the change.

Through this series, I am not only aim to share the experiences but also to inspire and equip you with the knowledge to host your own FinOps hackathon. The fingerprint of every customer is unique and a one size fits all approach will not really work. You can pick and choose some of the ideas and approaches. The journey is as rewarding as it is challenging, and as always, we learn and improve together.